it’s definitely also out wherever you get movies illicitly, so you can watch it for free wherever you are. now there’s no excuse not to watch it, for all the reasons i laid out in this post. great movie about drowning in dysphoria and suffocating in the closet

link

  • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    So there’s a cinematic masterwork out there that perfectly captures all the parts of a trans biography that i’ve just escaped from and fucking loathe being reminded of because that feels like being pulled back underwater when you’ve just crawled onto the shore after swimming for your life?

    tbf it does sound like a must watch for me 4 or 5 years from now, but i don’t think i could do this movie any justice atm.

    • Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      I’m maybe 40 minutes into it right now, and there’s also a lot of autism-coding going on with the protagonist (more in the “social anxiety, special interests, and tendency to zone out” sense than the Sheldon Bazooper stereotype). Or maybe I’m just projecting; I can’t fucking tell anymore.

      But yeah, it’s a painful watch so far.

      • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        there’s also a lot of autism-coding going on with the protagonist (more in the “social anxiety, special interests, and tendency to zone out” sense

        t4t dating is how i learned all i know about medieval urban planning and music theatre and how my subs expand their knowledge of paleontology, so i don’t get to complain about this.

        • Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          Nice; sounds about right. I only brought it up because it’s something I haven’t seen mentioned in the other threads about the film – I read a lot of overlap between dysphoric malaise and autistic burnout with the way that Smith plays the character, at least in the first third or so of the movie, which is appropriate because of how many of us (myself included) are ND and, in a lot of cases, on the spectrum. I also posted that comment like 10 minutes before the dysphoria narrative went from “vague symbolism” to “blatantly obvious.”

          I can confirm, though: if you just got out of the spiral of loneliness, depression, and denial, it is a hard fucking watch. 8 hours later, and quite honestly, I still feel enraged by it.

          mild spoilers?

          I keep wanting to throw around phrases like “the Charlie Brown of gender questioners” or “what if Neo took the blue pill in The Matrix” or “what if Atreyu/Bastian just rolled over and let the Nothing destroy any and all semblance of hope” or “House of 1,000 Corpses-ass ending, but psychological.”

          And I’m enraged by the notion that it’s too late to burn away the facade and be true to yourself once you’re in your early 40s because fuck you, life isn’t over yet and you know it – stand up and fight, or you will die a hollowed-out husk. The writer/director knows this, and decided to go the [psychological] “torture porn” route with it.

          • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.netMEnglish
            1·
            4 months ago

            I just watched it and it was pretty shocking how accurate the metaphor was. Im so far past a lot of my transition that it honestly made me angry. Like I was telling a past version of myself to wake the fuck up

            I also definitely got the vibe the main character had something else going on too, autistic or pseudo autistic due to dysphoria and repressing the “real self”.